Total mass of a patch of a matter-dominated Friedmann-Robertson-Walker universe

In this thesis, I have addressed the question of how to calculate the total relativistic mass for a patch of a spherically-symmetric matter-dominated spacetime of negative curvature. This calculation provides the open-universe analogue to a similar calculation first proposed by Zel'dovich in 1962. I consider a finite, spherically-symmetric (SO(3)) spatial region of a Friedmann-Robertson-Walker (FRW) universe surrounded with a vacuum described by the Schwarzschild metric. Provided that the patch of FRW spacetime is glued along its boundary to a Schwarzschild spacetime in a sufficiently smooth manner, the result is a spatial region of FRW which transitions smoothly to an asymptotically flat exterior region such that spherical symmetry is preserved throughout. I demonstrate that this mass diverges as the size of the patch is taken to include the entire universe, and discuss the intuition provided by a classical approximation to the total mass using the formalism of Newtonian Cosmology.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2017

Author dc:creator

• Geller, Sarah (Sarah R.)

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Alan H. Guth.

• Physics.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/112043

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/112043